Rain broke late that afternoon with torrential tropic force. The smouldering warehouses of the city sizzled and steamed and the fire ended in thin black mud. Great pools collected in the streets; water eddied in the gutters, clogging the few drains with its burden of refuse. The tin roofs rang with the falling drops. Sodden rioters waded down the lanes to shelter; troops left their posts and returned to barracks huddled under cover in a stench of wet cloth. The surviving decorations from the pageant of birth control clung limply round the posts or, grown suddenly too heavy, snapped their strings and splashed into the mud below. Darkness descended upon a subdued city.
For six confused days Basil floundered on towards the lowlands. For nine hours out of the twenty-four the rain fell regularly and unremittingly so that it usurped the sun’s place as the measure of time and the caravan drove on through the darkness striving hopelessly to recover the hours wasted under cover during the daylight.
On their second day’s journey Basil’s boys brought a runner to him, who was carrying a sodden letter in the end of a cleft staff.
“A great chief will not suffer his messengers to be robbed.”
“There is a time,” said Basil, “when all things must be suffered.”
They took the message. It read: From Viscount Boaz, Minister of the Interior of the Azanian Empire, to the Earl of Ngumo, Greeting. May this reach you. Peace be upon your house. Salute in my name and in the name of my family, Achon whom some style Emperor of Azania, Chief of the Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas. May his days be many and his progeny uncounted. I, Boaz, no mean man in the Empire, am now at Gulu on the Wanda marches; with me is Seth whom some style Emperor. I tell you this so that Achon may know me for what I am, a loyal subject of the crown. I fear for Seth’s health and await word from your Lordship as to how best he may be relieved of what troubles him. Boaz.
“Go on in front of us,” Basil ordered the man, “and tell Lord Boaz that Achon is dead.”
“How can I return to my Lord, having lost the letter he gave me. Is my life a small thing?”
“Go back to your Lord. Your life is a small thing beside the life of the Emperor.”
Later two beasts lost their footing in the bed of a swollen watercourse and were washed down and tumbled among the boulders; during the third night’s march five of the hindermost deserted their leaders. The boys mutinied, first for more money; later they refused every inducement to proceed. For two days Basil rode on alone, swaying and slipping towards his rendezvous.
Confusion dominated the soggy lanes of Matodi. Major Walsh, the French secretaries and Mr. Schonbaum daily despatched conflicting messages by wireless and cable. First that Seth was dead and that Achon was Emperor, then that Achon was dead and Seth was Emperor.
“Doubtless
“Alas, M. Jean, she will not speak.”
“Do you suspect she knows more?”
“M. Ballon’s wife should be above suspicion.”
The officials and soldiers loafed in the dry inter-vals about barracks and offices; they had no instructions and no money; no news from the capital. De-stroyers of four nations lurked in the bay standing by to defend their nationals. The town governor made secret preparations for an early escape to the mainland. Mr. Youkoumian, behind the bar at the Amurath Hotel, nervously decocted his fierce spirits.
“There ain’t no sense in aving bust-ups. Ere we are, no Emperor, no railway, and those low niggers making ell with my property at Debra-Dowa. And just you see, in less than no time the civilised nations will start a bombardment. Gosh.”
In the dingy calm of the Arab club the six senior members munched their khat in peace and spoke gravely of a very old error of litigation.
Amidst mud and liquid ash at Debra-Dowa a leaderless people abandoned their normal avocations and squatted at home, occupying themselves with domestic bickerings; some of the rural immigrants drifted back to their villages, others found temporary accommodation in the saloons of the deserted palace, expecting something to happen.
Among the dry clinkers of Aden, Sir Samson and Lady Courteney waited for news of the missing aeroplane. They were staying at the Residency where everything was done that hospitality and tact could do, to relieve the strain of their anxiety; newspaper agents and sympathetic compatriots were kept from them. Dame Mildred and Miss Tin were shipped to Southampton by the first P. & O. Mr.
Jagger made preparations to leave a settlement he had little reason to like. Sir Samson and Lady Courteney walked alone on the cliff paths, waiting for news. Air patrols crossed to Azania, flying low over the impenetrable country where Prudence’s machine was last observed, returned to refuel, set out again and at the end of the week had seen nothing to report. The military authorities discussed and despaired of the practicability of landing a search party.
In the dry spell between noon and sunset, Basil reached Seth’s encampment at Gulu. His men had taken possession of a small village. A dozen or so of them, in ragged uniforms, sat on their haunches in the clearing, silently polishing their teeth with pieces of stick.
His camel lurched down onto its knees and Basil dismounted. None of the guardsmen rose to salute him; no sign of greeting from inside the mud huts. The squatting men looked into the steaming forest beyond him.
He asked: “Where is the Emperor?” But no one answered.
“Where is Boaz?”
“In the great house. He is resting.”
They indicated the headman’s hut which stood on the far side of the compound, distinguished from the others by its superior size and a narrow verandah, floored with beaten mud and shaded by thatch.
“Why is the Emperor not in the great house?”
They did not answer. Instead they scoured their teeth and gazed abstractedly into the forest, where a few monkeys swung in the steaming air, shaking the water from bough to bough.
Basil crossed through them to the headman’s hut. It was windowless and for a short time his eyes could
